- Written by Nikila Henry
- BBC News, Delhi
Prison officials in India's capital Delhi gave Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal an insulin injection after his blood sugar levels spiked, the party told the BBC.
Kejriwal has been detained in Tihar Jail since his arrest on March 21.
Authorities have accused the former anti-corruption campaigner of involvement in a money laundering case, which he denies.
His arrest came as a shock to many Indians, weeks before India began voting in a general election.
Critics say the actions against Mr. Kejriwal and several other opposition parties in the run-up to the elections are politically motivated and deny them a level playing field in parliamentary elections. The Indian government insists that its investigative agencies are just doing their job.
Kejriwal, whose pre-trial detention was extended for two weeks on Tuesday, is a diabetic and his detention has raised concerns about his health among his supporters.
A war of words has also begun between his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), prison officials and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
India's Enforcement Directorate (ED), India's Financial Crimes Investigation Agency, which arrested him, said Kejriwal deliberately ate too many mangoes and sweets to spike his blood sugar levels in order to use it as a basis for obtaining bail. Accused.
Mr Kejriwal and his party strongly rejected these claims and claimed that Tihar authorities' denial of proper treatment led to the spike in blood sugar levels.
In a letter to prison authorities on Monday, Kejriwal said he had been requesting insulin for the past 10 days.
“I showed my high blood sugar levels to all the doctors who came to see me. They reminded me that there are three peaks in blood sugar levels every day, between 250 and 320,” Kejriwal said in the letter. “I showed that,” he said. Levels below 140 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter) are considered normal.
He added that his fasting blood sugar levels were between 160 and 200 mg/dL each day, well above the normal range of 70 to 100 mg/dL.
Prison authorities said Kejriwal was not given insulin as he did not ask the doctor to administer it during his video consultation.
On Monday, a court ordered doctors at Delhi's premier hospital AIIMS to decide on the medication, after which he received an insulin injection on Monday night, AAP spokesperson Pritam Pal Singh told the BBC.
AAP also accused India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of refusing to treat Kejriwal. AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a statement: “Today it became clear that the Prime Minister was right in needing insulin. But officials in the Bharatiya Janata Party government deliberately withheld treatment of the Prime Minister. ” he said.
The BJP accused AAP of trying to “gather sympathy” for Mr. Kejriwal during the general elections that began last Friday and ends in June. “Arvind Kejriwal is a diabetic, but his sugar levels are controlled in prison,” Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party president Virendra Sachdeva told NDTV News Channel.
Kejriwal is the third AAP leader to be arrested in connection with Delhi's now-defunct alcohol sales policy, in which the AAP government was accused of favoring liquor barons in exchange for kickbacks.
Mr Kejriwal called his arrest “illegal” and criticized the investigation, claiming that the authorities had failed to frame “concrete” charges against him.